How to Pivot in a Time of Crisis: The Alternative to Scrambling Your Workforce

This article is part of the iA Think Differently series. Written by members of the iA Innovation Council, the series showcases thought leadership in analytics, communications, payments, and compliance technology for the accounts receivable management industry.

---

While the world goes through an unprecedented change right before our eyes, the economic impact is becoming increasingly real for all of us.  

The sobering reality for the credit and collection industry is this: The lack of technological innovation is hurting you and it's going to hurt your employees and your clients. Now is the time to learn about change management by adopting a new way of thinking. We’ll also show you how you can get 50 free workstations.  

Many companies in this industry, like many others, have hedged themselves on bloated software and outbound call centers in fear of change. Senior executives and stakeholders are now presented with the challenge of an unfamiliar challenge: change. In this new reality—that we are all in together—change is going to happen whether you face the music or not.  

[article_ad]

To succeed at change management, the focus needs to be on your people and your sustainable, self-serve, digital assets.  

So, it pains me to see companies scramble to set up remote staff and only remote staff. For a company like Revenly, that’s fine, we are nearly all remote anyway. Our people are comfortable, our digital assets are managed, what we provide to our clients is stable—and right now we are working hard to improve the value we deliver. We have our workstations, our home offices, and our routines carved out. We were ready for it whether we knew what “it” was or not.  

For a company that has never managed a remote work environment, that is going to be a challenge. In other words, if you think having your call center work from home is going to be the life raft, all I can say is, “old habits die hard.” 

While ops and IT teams are setting up your remote workforces and spacing out the desks at the office for essential staff, give yourself pause to think differently.  

It’s time for the words "agile, lean, and extensibility” to become part of your business plan. I'm not saying change everything, but ask yourself how much of your payments are self-serve?  How are you going to automate reconciliation? How are your normal processes going to exist outside of your siloed offices? Change needs to occur at every level to succeed. That may mean deploying new jobs to manage virtual processes, giving an employee who feels displaced a new responsibility and newfound purpose.  

Focus on reliable revenue with low cost of acquisition that’s easy to scale: a self-serve option that's agile, lean, and offers extensibility. Don’t fall into the same trap that many companies are in now by relying on a single point of failure. It’s time to make bold moves and invest in something of strategic importance, that’s sustainable, and will last years to come.  

Here are some resources we think you’ll find useful: 

• Under 72-hour deployment of new, automated payment platforms, that can automate your payments, manage reconciliation and stay in touch with payers no matter where you are (Revenly).  

• Virtual workstations products WorkSpaces and WorkDocs at no charge for up to 50 users through June 30th, 2020 (AWS).  

Disruption comes in all shapes and sizes. While we all hope for the best, healthiest, outcome for one another, the reality is that once this passes the world will have changed. Don’t hesitate to reach out and before you ask…  

Yes, technology can do that. Get your information by clicking here.

---

About the iA Innovation Council

The iA Innovation Council is a collaborative working group of product, tech, strategy, and operations thought leaders at the forefront of analytics, communications, payments, and compliance technology. Group members meet in person several times each year to engage in substantive dialogue and whiteboard sessions with the creative thinkers behind the latest innovations for the industry, the regulators who audit and establish guardrails for new technology, and educators, entrepreneurs and innovators from outside the industry who inspire different thinking. 

2020 members include: